


you'll be alone in a quick

by roseisreturning



Series: chick habit [2]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: AU, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-26
Updated: 2014-02-26
Packaged: 2018-01-13 19:31:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1238269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseisreturning/pseuds/roseisreturning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cosima Niehaus has lived right up next to the same empty place for a decade of her life. And she likes it. Almost as much as she likes the woman who moves in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you'll be alone in a quick

**Author's Note:**

> warning for: casual ableism, eugenics mention, food mention, gendered slurs, illness mention, drug use, internalized homophobia, smoking mention

You’ve lived alone for a third of your life, and you don’t plan to change it. You think you probably missed out on part of the college experience or whatever, but you like it. You like listening to Diplo at three in the morning and spreading your work across the floor and smoking probably more than you should. (Definitely more than you should, the blood on your sleeve tells you. In your condition.) But you like that the place next to yours (the place with the roof outcropping right against yours) has been empty for three years and eight months.

You don’t like that for three hours, the lights in the house next to yours have all been turned on. You don’t like that you see the silhouettes of boxes through the window. You don’t like the car out front.

But you like the woman who moves in.

You’re not, like, spying on her or anything, but a week after your birthday and two after she’s moved in, you can’t help but notice she still hasn’t unpacked all the way. This probably has something to do with the laptop she’s got set up on the box closest to the window.

You aren’t thinking about the view she’s got of you from there when you step out your window.

She races over to you the second she sees you from over her screen, opening her window with an Olympic level of force and fluidity.

"Hey!" you say before she can freak out. "So, you’re my new neighbor. Sorry if I made you, uh, worry."

"Yes, um, I’m—do you always…?"

"Yeah."

She nods. You nod. She leans further down the window, which is probably dangerous. “Delphine,” she says.

"Cosima."

For a second, she looks conflicted before swinging her legs over the windowsill and sliding herself down to where you’re standing. The paper says it’s a hundred and seven today, and it feels like it.

In the minute of semi-uncomfortable giggling, you make up for four years of dorm life. Delphine is the first to speak.  
“Enchantée,” she says.

You don’t know where you picked up the idea that you can or should speak French, but you echo her. “Enchantée. Which, uh, speaking of… You’re French. I’m not. You’re probably going to want some help, uh, navigating everything.”

"Yes. Is—sorry—is tomorrow good?"

"Yeah! Yeah, uh, tomorrow’s great."

Delphine’s arms move back up to the window, then settles back on the ledge. “Thank you,” she says.

"Yeah. See ya."

"Bye."

You’d kind of wanted to think while you were outside. It doesn’t happen.

Sixteen hours later, Delphine knocks on the glass of her window, which would probably be a lot more welcome if you were wearing a dress you actually liked. You slide it off (it’s gotta be better to look disheveled and hot than high-maintenance and indecisive, right?) and pull back the curtains.

"Sorry," you mouth.

She nods. You resign yourself to burgundy dress number seventeen and meet Delphine at your door.

You greet each other in an oxymoronic dissonant unison.

"So, uh, I’ve lived here forever," you say. "So if you want me to shut up at some point…"

"No, no, it’s good to know it."

"Yeah."

You think you learn more about Delphine than she does about any part of Berkeley, but for some reason you don’t mind. She just got her doctorate last year, studying host-parasite relationships. She has a boyfriend. She doesn’t think it’ll last. She’s never smoked anything but cigarettes. She’s never stolen anything. Her favorite book is Brave New World. She swears she knew a girl who looked identical to you. She hasn’t eaten anything but overpriced vegan takeout since she got here because the only grocery store her phone recognized was terrifying. 

When she says this, you shrug. “iPhone?”

"Mhm."

"That’s why. Total trash. BlackBerry is the way to go. And, like, a laptop. Obvs."

"I’ll keep that in mind."

"Seriously. It’s like Apple wants you to get killed."

"Encouraging."

"Sorry, man. Just trying to save you. Come on, okay? Real groceries, no judgement."

"Thank you," she says. You feel like she’s said this a thousand times.

She says it again when you’re back at her door and your door and you’re not really sure if you should thank her. You don’t. You just shrug.

You don’t talk to her again until you fall back into your old habits. Apparently, late-night dubstep doesn’t lend itself to peaceful sleep.

She doesn’t knock on her window, but when she comes to the door, she apologizes. You wave it off. “Totally my fault. Just trying to figure some shit out about, uh… myself.”

She nods. “Me too,” she says. You like her inflection.

"Right," you say. Your I trails longer than it should. "So, uh. Good luck. And… goodnight."

"Goodnight."

You listen to your music through overpriced headphones from then on.

Delphine doesn’t. It is ten past midnight when you hear her nineties pop from your half-open window.

You knock on the glass. “Hey, asshole.”

Her laptop is just bright enough that you can see her smiling before she walks to her window and slides out of it. “Hey,” she says.

You join her at the edge of your kind-of roof.

"If this is about the music, I have a defense!" Delphine tells you.

"It wasn’t," you lie, because the Cardigans make you stupid. "I just…" You feel like a twelve-year-old with your voice shaking like this. You pretend like you don’t notice. "Don’t you think it’s time we admit what this is really about?"

If the laptop’s light were stronger, you would have known not to kiss her.

"I’m sorry," she whispers.

It doesn’t register at first. Then it hits you. You’re the biggest bitch on Earth. “God—Delphine. I should’ve—Berkeley, right? God, I’m such an asshole, I… Hey, I won’t…”

"It’s fine."

"It’s not. I—I should’ve known, okay? I’m sorry."

You don’t see her when she goes back inside, but when the sound of her feet against the shingles stops, her music gets softer.

It’s forty-three degrees outside, but in the minute you take to get back inside, you can feel yourself freezing.

Really, you can’t believe how stupid you were. A fucking eugenics lecture and a nice restaurant and you think you have something. Like everyone who moves to Berkeley’s had a fucking queer awakening. Like a kiss on the cheek was anything more than platonic. Like calculating the centimeters from her lips and yours was anything more than desperate.

You’re an idiot.

That’s the only explanation. You were dumb, and optimistic, and wanted to believe that you had a shot. A shot with the straight girl.

 _Classic_.

And now you’ve fucked it all up. Delphine _liked_ you. She _got_ you. And you thought she wanted to fuck you.

And she’s not even talking to you.

You wonder if it’s sadistic to want to know if she’s as lonely as you.

She’s not. She would have said. Not everyone’s as socially inept as you, Niehaus. Not everyone takes a friendship and makes it into some twisted, one-sided romance.

It’s like it never really clicked for you. Your happy ending is living another day. Not falling in love. Like it would even make a difference if she loved you too.

You see her out, once. You’re buying groceries at the place you’d shown her. She waves. Neither of you speak. You take your time leaving so it doesn’t happen again in checkout.

You don’t want to think about Delphine as a stranger.

She texts you that night. “It’s Delphine.” (Like you’d forgotten. Like you’d be the one deleting numbers.) “Will you meet me outside?”

You don’t reply, but walk outside anyway.

Delphine tries to meet your eyes, but you both keep looking away before she can.

"Hey."

"Hey."

"I’m sorry," you say. She says.

"It’s fine," she says. You say.

"I get it," you say. (She doesn’t.) "You’re straight. It’s fine. It’s cool. I’m not sixteen. I can handle it."

Delphine doesn’t say anything. She still isn’t looking at you.

"Hey." You’re trying to whisper, make your voice as soft as possible. It just makes its shaking clearer. "I’m really sorry. You don’t… God. You don’t have to forgive me, okay?"

"I know," she says. "I… I can’t stop thinking about it."

You don’t want to think about how she means it, but you ask her anyway.

You put all your energy into listening, but only pick up phrases. Your laptop told you it was sixty-eight. It feels warmer.

Then, she kisses you.

It’s the first time she sees your place without a layer of glass between you. You cannot take your mind off the blood-spattered tissues on your floor.

You get your happy ending. Delphine sees none of them, and you don’t cough once.

**Author's Note:**

> i would be surprised if someone hasn’t written this better than (and before) me. but sometimes you start a fic on what should probably be a concerning amount of medication, and you just gotta finish it. unrelatedly, tumblr user reynalikesgirls is the bomb for listening to me whining about this fic.


End file.
